At 50, Southside Speedway still emphasizes family ties

When J.M. Wilkinson opened a small racetrack in Chesterfield County in 1959, it involved a little whim and a little peer pressure.

In 2009, when his daughters, Sue Clements and Patsy Stargardt, watch the green flag drop on Friday nights at Southside Speedway, they are surprised at how quickly the popular family attraction on Genito Road reached its 50th anniversary. Their father died in 1990 and his wife, Anna, died in 2000, but as co-owners and promoters, Clements and Stargardt have continued Southside’s family link.

“Our father was a home builder, and he bought the land on speculation for maybe a housing development. I even heard talk of a cemetery,“ said Stargardt, who also serves as head of concessions. “There were different possibilities, and then some friends of his kept saying, ‘Now Milton, why don’t you open it as a speedway,‘ and I guess, just kind of on a whim, he did it.“

When Wilkinson and three partners made the purchase, the land was home to a dormant dirt track known as Royall Speedway, according to Let’s Talk Racing’s Joe Kelly, a longtime announcer with Southside Speedway and promoter during the 1989 season.

Wilkinson bought out his partners, enlarged and paved the one-third-mile oval, made sure the lights were working, had the track sanctioned by NASCAR and renamed it Southside Speedway before the first race in 1959.

Opening the track turned out to be a good business move.

“When it opened as Royall [Speedway], they ran races at City Stadium in Richmond, but people didn’t like the noise and the traffic so they banned races from Richmond, so [NASCAR] had to go way out in the country,“ Kelly said. “[Genito Road] was just a two-lane road back then.“

Southside Speedway was part of the NASCAR short-track circuit from 1959 through 2000. Legends Bobby Allison, Eddy Krause, Emanuel Zervakis, Ray Hendrick and Ted Hairfield raced there.

The Hendrick and Hairfield families are working on their third generation of racers.

Ray Hendrick called the track home in the 1960s. His son Roy was track champion in the ‘80s and ‘90s and is still racing. Ray’s grandson Brandon now races at Southside in the Late Model division.

The Hairfield family started with Ted, continued with Bugs and was most recently represented by Chris in the Late Model division.

The track hasn’t changed significantly, though improvements have been made as necessary. The grandstands were upgraded in 1983, a scoreboard was added over Turn 3 and radios were installed for driver communication.

“Even back as far into the late’70s, there was no radio communication save from the press tower over to the scoreboard,“ Clements said. “We had men that stood way up in the air at the scoreboard, and they hung signs up there as to what car was in the lead. Over the years, everything has become so much more electronic.“

Though the track stayed in the family, Wilkinson retired from his position in 1974. Joe Baldacci kept things going as promoter from 1974 through 1988. After Baldacci stepped aside, six promoters ran the track from 1989 through 2005 when Clements and Stargardt reclaimed oversight of the day-to-day operations.

Though the sisters are modest about what they’ve done with the track, others have noticed their work.

“Sue and Patsy reinvigorated the place,“ Kelly said. “They put new fencing all around the speedway and made big improvements in the lighting and public address system. They have one of the better public address systems in the Richmond area.“

Clements and Stargardt split duties at the track. Clements became familiar with track operations working in the front office with her father in the track’s early years. Stargardt ran concessions in the early 1960s.

“She knows how to cook,“ Clements joked. “Not that I’m not a good cook. That just wasn’t my thing. I like working with the drivers and so forth. I like rolling tires and pumping gas.“

Both said they couldn’t have kept the track going without the folks who help them every week.

“We have a former pastor, our church music director, we have many, many friends from [Bethia United Methodist Church] who come out here. Many families have a father and two children working, husband and wife working,“ Stargardt said. “We have some in the racing part of it who’ve been here 30 years or more.“

The track staff works hard to keep it a family-friendly source of entertainment with various themed nights, a playground and prices that have stayed reasonable throughout the years.

For 50 years, Southside Speedway has been independently owned and operated. It remains the longest, continuously running sports attraction in the Richmond area and is open on Friday nights from April through September.

“We appreciate so many people that have been here all 50 of those years,“ Stargardt said. “It gives us a great pleasure to see them week after week, and it makes us sad when they’re gone, but there are so many new people in the area, who have not heard about Southside Speedway, and we would just love for them to come out and see what it’s all about.“

Sara Page is sports editor of the Midlothian Exchange.